up to the moon
by moeten
Summary: Say, Ellie, have I ever told you the story of how I met your father, had you, and then hooked him up with his ex wife?
1. up to the moon

_the thing i absolutely 100% hate most about the finale is every single aspect of ellie — specifically how they left her mother nameless and faceless, how awful the whole thing was. so this is my take on fixing that godawful plot._

 _kinda?_

 _it's a two part story. it's pretty different from my usual stuff, i think, but i hope you enjoy it._

* * *

i know i have to make a change

i say the same thing every day

but i just can't get up to the moon

'cause what you said was easy

seemed so hard to do

with each mistake i make i step away

* * *

 _Sweetie, there's a_ reason _I haven't told you the story of how I met your father._

* * *

The bar was crowded and noisy, full of university students celebrating the end of term. The televisions above the bar were blaring some football game she didn't care about but most of the others seemed to: there were screams and cheers and chants from the crowd. She finished her shot and slammed the glass on the bar. "Another!" she screamed above the din, gesturing toward the bar tender ( _he's pretty hot_ , she thinks) and her empty glasses.

He slides her another vodka and she shows some boob. He smirks and turns away. _Whatever_. She's tired of the game and the cheering. Isn't there a jukebox here? She takes her glass with her and pushes through the crowd, smiling at the hotter, beefier guys and sliding against them. _I really need to get laid_.

The jukebox is digital; she clicks through the songs, finds one she remembers from middle school, seventh grade dances, when it was fresh and risqué and pulling hair and ass smacking was the dangerous giggly unknown — she grins, thinking of those beefy guys at the bar and rubs her back pockets for a quarter or change.

"Here," someone says over the din — she barely hears over the cheering of the crowd and some other sorority girls screaming _go! go! go!_ but is suddenly aware of his presence, a crisp, smokey smell, expensive fitting clothes, he looks like a wall street douchebag, like a smarmy middle aged asshole, like the farthest possible man in the world from her ex. "Let me get that for you," he says, louder, pressing some quarters into her hand with smooth fingers (nice nails). The lines around his eyes look make him look mature. Confident.

She swallows some vodka and giggles. "Thanks! I'm Jenny! What's your name?"

* * *

… _Yeaaaah. I'll tell you_ that _story when you're older._

* * *

The story I want to tell you today starts a while later.

Nine months and fifteen days later, as a matter of fact, and let me sum up my mood for you: _exhausted_. I was unwashed, sore all over, and hadn't slept for fifteen days. Coincidentally, that was your exact age at the time!

We moved out of that apartment when you were only about a year old, so let me describe it for you: at the time I, _we_ , lived in a studio in Hells Kitchen, because I was twenty-two and it had seemed really important to me to live in Manhattan instead of somewhere I could actually afford. I had a sofa that doubled as my bed, a couple of hot plates for a kitchen, and a bathroom laid out so that if you wanted to close the door you had to pull your knees up on the toilet, and if you wanted to get in the shower, you had to — well, same thing. There was a patch of open space between the sofa and the closet and my TV stand (I'd, optimistically, put down a rug), and when you were born I could mostly fit your crib in the closet — it only stuck out about half a foot, and my clothes could fit piled up next to the sofa.

It wasn't _that_ bad. I was pretty proud of it, actually. I have pictures of it somewhere, even a few of you. I know there's one of you playing with your bunny on the rug in storage somewhere, and I gave your dad a picture of him and you on the sofa when you started elementary school…

But anyway. Flashback to 2020.

You were just the cutest baby, with your squashed up little nose and big blue eyes, but on that particular day I was so tired I wanted to cry. I didn't even know _wanting to cry_ was an emotion, but trust me, it was. I wasn't sad, depressed, mad, happy, anything. I was just _wanting to cry_. I remember I was sitting on the sofa in a sort of stupor. You were asleep and the TV was off but I was staring at the black screen anyway, looking at my own reflection. Unwashed, stringy hair, unwashed, loose tanktop and sweats. I had been holding a stale donut for like an hour without eating it. I kept thinking _I should totally eat this_ and never actually got around to taking a bite.

I was a mess.

So when your dad started banging on my apartment door, I was seriously not in the mood.

Actually, I was so out of it that I didn't even register the banging at first. But after a minute (I guess), your dad switched it up — not banging on the door exactly, but knocking in a sort of rhythm, dah-dah-dahdahdah, and the tune caught my attention. I staggered up from the sofa and, still holding my donut, walked across the room and checked the peephole. Like I said, it was your father. I'd seen him a couple of times in the days since you were born, and about the same number of times during my pregnancy. Let me just lay it out for you: I did _not_ like him very much back then.

But he was your dad, so I opened the door. (I left the chain on.)

"Yeah?" I asked.

" _Jenny,_ hello," he said in this fake, smooth voice.

Seriously. I _really_ didn't like him. This might come as a surprise to you: I actually hope it does. Your dad and I have worked pretty hard over the years to be friendly. After I got pregnant, I wanted as little to do with him as he wanted with me — I wasn't even completely sure he was your dad for most of my pregnancy. It's a long story.

Okay, not that long: just before I met your father, I'd had a bad breakup with a guy I'm going to call _Douchenozzle_. At the time I thought I was madly in love with Douchenozzle, but he cheated on me. I went out and got myself some revenge — coincidentally, this was the same day I met your father! — and then turned up pregnant a couple of weeks later. I didn't know if Douchenozzle was your father, thought I was in love with him, thought it'd be a new chapter for me and him, possibly with me as _Mrs_ Douchenozzle, because I was twenty-two and _incredibly_ stupid. Obviously this didn't work out — Douchey McDoucherson hauled ass out of there as soon as he found out I might be having his kid, and paternity tests proved you were your father's. In retrospect, thank god for that.

But the key word there is "retrospect." I like your dad _now_ , but back then?

HAH.

"What do you want?" I asked him from the other side of the chain.

"I wanted to see Ellie!" he said cheerfully, holding up some gigantic toy or another. I seriously can't remember what it was anymore, let's say it was an elephant.

"You can't give _Ellie_ an _elephant_ ," I said (probably).

He gave me a shit eating grin. "It's _cute_. C'mon, Jenny."

Your grandma and grandpa got divorced when I was three, and I never really saw my dad much after that: he got married and had Uncle Kaiden and Aunt Ashley and I always kind of resented him for it. So when you were born and your dad shocked all of New York Presbyterian by sticking around for it, I knew I wanted him to be part of your life if he was willing.

So I sighed and shut the door, undid the chain, and let him and the elephant in. I took a couple of bites of my donut and walked back over to the sofa.

Whenever your dad used to visit my apartment, he'd have this look on his face — raised eyebrows, wide eyes. _Badly hidden disgust_ , basically. I mean, you know what your dad's place is like. I don't know if you've noticed, but he _still_ does it when he comes over. "Is she sleeping?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said. He put the elephant down somewhere and walked over to the crib. I watched him coo over you, looking super out of place in his Prada or whatever. When we'd met, I thought it was kind of sophisticated and cool, but in my apartment he just looked ridiculous.

"Don't wake her," I said as he started to reach for you in your crib. He ignored me. "I'm freaking serious," I snapped. (I might have used a different word.) "You'd better not wake her the freak up."

"Relax," he said all smarmy. "She's my kid, I got this."

"Right," I snapped. "She's your _kid_. You _looooove_ her. That's why I've been shut up in here for two weeks while you're out sleeping with college girls."

I think even at the time I kind of knew that didn't make sense. It wasn't like your dad had custody, he was basically just a line on your birth certificate. But I was alone in a big city and _incredibly_ tired.

He turned away from your crib so I could see his wounded look. It didn't really work, because I was over my Bad Life Decisions With Men phase.

"You look like crap," he said, which helped me with that resolve. "You look awful. And you're talking like a crazy psycho lady, when was the last time you…" (I think he was probably trying to tell me I looked exhausted, but your father has never had much of a way with words)

"Oh my god, get out," I said. I tried to rouse myself from the sofa.

"Wha—" He took a step back, his voice got high, and you started to wake up, making these squalling bird noises as you started to cry. It was like your father was suddenly invisible and I wasn't an undead zombie: I launched myself up and had picked you up with olympic speeds, bouncing you and holding your head and making shush-y noises. You had this adorable duck onesie back then. I put it on you whenever it was clean.

After a little while I had you calmed down and sat on the couch with you to feed you. It's not like I had forgotten your father was still there, except I really didn't care about him. He wasn't doing much — I guess just standing there watching me with you.

It must have been weird for him. At the time I didn't notice, didn't care — I really barely knew him, to be honest. He could have sat down on the sofa next to me and spilled out his heart and soul and I would have shrugged. Said something like _yeah, that sucks_. Maybe mentioned my own recent breakup with Douchenozzle.

It's almost funny to imagine.

"I know you don't like me much," I imagine he says, as I cover myself with a towel and give you the boob. I'm not looking at him, but at your little face, the puffs of hair.

"You're right," I say.

"The truth is," he says. "I'm a screw up. I've messed up every good thing I've ever had. It's not on purpose, but I lose track of what I'm thinking and saying and I hurt people. I don't mean to. I really don't." He comes over and sits next to me on the sofa, our knees touching. I look at you, and he looks at his legs. "I got divorced a couple of years ago," he says in this fantasy of mine, "and I don't really know why? I'm not crazy or stupid. I know why I signed the papers and why she did, all the problems we were having. But I lie awake and can't figure out how it got to that point. We used to be so happy."

"Sometimes relationships end," I imagine telling him. "I thought Mike and I were soulmates. That we had this connection, this deep bond. I'd look at him sometimes and be so sure I understood every thought he had, could read his every mood and movement. Whenever we'd fight it broke my heart because I loved him so much, but I thought that even that pain was proof of how much we loved eachother. Only he could hurt me that badly, because we were so much in love."

"I thought something like that about her, too," I figure he'd say — because back then, I couldn't imagine any other love than one of slamming doors and melodramatic tears.

"But he cheated on me," I said, "and she left you, and we met in a bar when we were both trying to forget how much that hurt."

Let me be clear — none of that happened.

I don't know, maybe your dad is different around his friends and family. But he and I have never sat anywhere and poured our hearts out. To be honest, it'd be kind of weird. But even though I'm making up the details here, that day in my apartment was the closest we ever came to that kind of conversation.

Well, okay — I did ask him, three years ago, about his divorce. This was right before I got married to your stepdad.

I love Dave more than I can explain to you, Ellie. And he loves me the same way, and loves you like you were his own daughter. But something funny comes over you when you get married. As much as I loved him, as much as I wanted to marry him, I was scared. I'll explain more when you're older, but for most of my life I've dated men like Mike or your father, men who are older and closed off and act like they're in charge, who lead their own lives without much regard for anyone else, whose scraps of affection felt special because they were so rare. Maybe it's not fair to include your father in that: he loves you, he's always made sure you know it, and I never really dated him; I'm friendly with him, but I don't know what he's like in a relationship. But it's also true that when I met your father, he reminded me of Mike.

Dave is nothing like Mike, but I was still scared of marrying him, a few days before the wedding. I was on the phone with your father finalizing when he was going to pick you up — you stayed with him while Dave and I were on our honeymoon, remember? — and I just kind of asked him: "You used to be married, right? Why did you get divorced? I mean, was it even worth it?"

He didn't answer; he was actually quiet for so long that I was starting to think maybe we'd gotten disconnected. It didn't occur to me to apologize or think my question was rude. "Barney?" I asked.

"I don't really know?" he said. It's unusual for him to sound hesitant, but he did.

"You don't know?"

He sighed, a loud, almost angry sounding puff in my ear that went on for a few seconds. "I never really wanted to get married in the first place," he said. "I mean… I wanted her more than anything. But getting _married_ was kinda just an excuse."

That sounded pretty backwards to me. Marriage was supposed to be the culmination of the love story, the happily ever after, the last moment of Cinderella when she's waving to the crowd with her prince in the pumpkin coach. (Your favorite part of the movie, right, Els?)

"So you never really wanted to be with her?" I asked. I probably should have known better than to ask the divorced father of my only child for wedding tips in the first place, but that never really occurred to me.

"Of course I did," he said with force. "I did more than anything. I would have been happy if we got married in AC, or had the big pain in the ass wedding we did or never married at all. We could have been engaged forever like Ted." (I want to add here that I have never met Ted Mosby but feel like I know his entire life story forwards and backwards after ten years of knowing your father.)

"Do you still feel that way?" I asked. "I mean, I'm getting married in less than a week and I want to, of course I do. But my parents divorced and you divorced and all my friends are single except for Britt — odds are me and Dave aren't going to last, and then what? I don't want to look back on all my memories and go _why the hell did I waste my life on this_. Why did I marry someone who only hurt me, why did I love someone who didn't feel the same? I know everyone is always saying it's better to love and lose, but where I'm sitting, I don't think so. Some things you can look back on with nostalgia, but heartbreak? Loss? What do you think about that, Barney? You have painful memories, don't you? Maybe you look back on my pregnancy fondly now even though you were afraid and angry back then, but that's because you have Els now and love her and know she loves you. You were scared and it must have hurt, having a child you didn't think you wanted, but now it doesn't matter because your love has overtaken that fear and pain. But can a divorce, an actual loss, be like that? Can you ever look back on a failed relationship or marriage and believe that? It's been seven years now since Mike and I broke up and I'm not angry or hurt anymore but when I think about him I feel this tired distaste; I don't remember the good times and think _oh, it was worth it_ , I remember the good and bad times and think _I'm going to call him Douchenozzle to my kid_. So what do you think? If it doesn't last forever, does it really count?"

I didn't put it like that, all eloquent and frantic and rushed, my heart pounding and hand clutching the phone in my hand, my eyes locked on myself in the bathroom mirror, blurred with panicked tears. I probably just said _what if we divorce too_. But that's what I was thinking. It was.

"Maybe you will," said your father, the downer.

I remember I laughed and wiped my tears. "Thanks."

"I never asked myself that stuff," he said, sounding pensive. "I didn't really have a plan. And I like plans. I _love_ plans. I could put a plan in a warm bubble bath and go to town on a good plan until it was ready to do _anything_ I wanted in gratitude. But when it came to Robin…we never really made plans together. Maybe that's why…"

I was a little weirded out by his bathtub story, but also fascinated. Like I said, this was only the second time we'd ever really had a conversation like this. In eight years. "You divorced because you didn't make plans?" I asked.

He was quiet again, but not for as long. "I didn't think I had to make plans. I didn't think I needed to do anything else once I had her." He hums, a single, thoughtful note. "That's what I think. You gotta make plans with a girl. Or a guy. Plans to keep them."

It really didn't answer any of my questions, but I smiled. "Plans to get them back?"

I imagined him nodding. "Definitely those."

In the end, my bridesmaids — Britt and Aunt Kaitlyn — got me down the aisle. As soon as I saw Dave standing up there, fidgeting, all my nerves went away. Kyle nudged Dave in the ribs when I appeared and the look on Dave's face…

Anyway, I never ended up needing your father's advice after all.

But that was seven years after you were born.

I was telling you a story from when you were fifteen days old.

I'd sat on the couch and was starting to feed you, and he did come over and sit next to us: not knee-to-knee, but as far away as he could, his legs spread and elbows on his knees. I was aware of him again but kind of ignoring him: as far as I was concerned, he'd given you your elephant and seen you and was welcome to go off and do whatever it was he did again.

You were on my boob and I was watching you — squashed nose, blue eyes, wispy hair: I read somewhere that babies are designed to look like their fathers when they're very young, and you really did look like him back then.

"Hey," he says, awkwardly. (I didn't reply.) "I'm… sorry I called you disgusting and greasy." As a matter of fact, those were two completely new insults right then. Your father was an ass. "Don't kick me out."

I told you before that your father's wounded look has never worked on me. That's kind of a lie. He was doing it then and it totally worked. I sighed. "Listen, jerk." (I might have used a different word) "I just had a freaking baby. Excuse me for not looking like Playboy's October centerfold."

"I don't really care if you don't," he said. "It's not like I ever want to hold hands with you ever again." (He didn't say that _exactly_.)

"The feeling is mutual, douche," I said.

He sighed, loud and frustrated. "I wanted to ask you something. Run something by you."

"Like what?"

"It's a favor to you too," he said, kind of more perky as he did like it was gonna win me over.

I was on to him. "Like _what_?"

"Why don't you let me take Ellie for a day or two?" he asked. My eyebrows went way up into my hairline.

"I'm sorry?" That's what your grandma always says. It's code for _are you kidding me right now you massive idiot who I can't believe is stupid enough to even say what you just said_.

"You're exhausted and probably could use a day or two to rest… clean…" he looked around my apartment. "Burn this trash heap to the ground…"

"You want to take my _baby_?" I held you a little closer to me; you squirmed and reattached to my boob.

"She's my kid too," he said. He didn't quite make eye contact. Back then, I think he was a little ashamed or uncomfortable about you. He loved you, he's always loved you: don't ever think he didn't or that I didn't know that, Els. But until you were born he'd never wanted a baby — that's how much he loves you — and I don't think back then, when you were brand new, he really knew how to deal with it yet.

Anyway, I didn't have a great counter for that. "No," I said.

He looked wounded — not in that smarmy annoying way of his, but for real. "Please, Jenny," he said. "She's my kid. I want to help take care of my kid."

I held you close to me and smelled your head and hair. Babies have a certain smell when they're clean. I can't really describe it, but you were the best smelling baby in the entire world. It wasn't like I couldn't understand the urge to be around you. I was exhausted and admittedly pretty cranky, but I had no intention of going more than two feet away from you at any point in time.

So I was melted. "Well… if you want to come over more… I guess it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to get more sleep," I said.

"I was thinking I could take her for a couple of days," he said, really quickly. (Because he probably knew I was gearing up for another _sorry?_ ) "I bought a crib and a changing table and toys and stuff for my place and Lily painted an animal mural in my spare room and Tracy knit a little tiny blanket so I'm _crazy_ prepared, and I could watch her, maybe, this weekend?" I opened my mouth and he added: "Or just tomorrow? Tomorrow afternoon-through-evening? Five-thirty to nine-ish?"

That was way too specific. "What do you want her for?" I asked.

"Because she's my daughter who I love more than life itself," he said with dripping sincerity. He has this way of making his eyes look really big and really blue — it's how he gets so many weekends with you in the summer.

Except you were fifteen days old and I really didn't want to let you go. "What's the real reason?"

"There's no," he started to say.

"I might let you have her," I said, "but only if you tell me the real reason."

He glared at me and looked around my apartment and then huffed and leaned back against my sofa. "Ted's getting married tomorrow. I'm supposed to go but I need a reason not to."

That made no sense. I barely knew your father back then and it made no sense. You know him now and you know your Uncle Ted and you _know_ how little sense that made.

But here was the part where it did start to make sense again, when he looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath and said: "and Tracy told me my ex-wife might be there."


	2. stars

_never trust me when i tell you how long something is going to be. this story is officially now a three partner - but let's be real, it might end up as four, just to wrap things up in a bow. either way, it's gonna be longer, but not_ much _longer._

 _i know this whole story is pretty different, the whole "original character narrating in first person" thing, but, because of that, please let me know what you think! even if you dislike it, this whole thing is really new to me, too, so i'd love feedback._

 _and kind of replying to my anon review — the way i see it, this is alternate ending canon. everything up to 2020 happened, but tracy doesn't die and b/r get that Meaningful Look over the monologue. that's as close as i can get to writing finale, lmao. truthfully everything about the ellie storyline offends me so much that even writing_ that _is difficult._

* * *

Okay, where were we? I was telling you the story of the day you were fifteen days old. That's for real how I remember it, by the number of days you were. I should subtitle it or something.

The story of how your dad and I kind of got to be friends.

The story of the time I fell asleep in your dad's apartment for two days straight.

The story of how you and I stumbled into a completely different story.

The story of the wedding of your dad's best friends who I have never met but know everything about for some reason.

The story of how I saved your dad's butt.

Oh, but, I'm going to skip ahead a little bit here.

Not long after Ted and Tracy's wedding (seriously, I've never met these people, why do I know their names? I seriously need to talk to your father about his newsletters.), it was your dad's birthday. He was turning some number that was, depressingly for us both, almost double my own age at the time, and in one of his newsletters he mentioned he was having a party at his place. I don't think he intended on inviting me, and I didn't plan on going. But the day of was just after the end of my maternity leave. I was working from home and exhausted beyond words and you wouldn't settle down and I couldn't focus on my computer. I was totally at my wit's end.

All at once it dawned on me: your father and I were _coparenting_ now! What father doesn't want his daughter at his birthday party? Exactly.

So I bundled you up in your little baby Burberry jacket your dad got you and put you in your stroller, and before you could say _Momma you are so smart_ we were on the E train. It was nice to be out of my apartment for once, and I remember it was a pretty nice day. You were sleeping by the time we got to your dad's neighborhood: I stopped outside of your dad's building to check your coat and make sure you were looking super cute for the party.

That was when Robin Scherbatsky said hello.

Actually, she didn't say _hello_. She kind of said "Oh my god, that's her, isn't it?" and sounded horrified and scared and upset and a ton of other negative emotions all in the same breath, and I was kind of like _wow that's a horrible thing to say to my baby, random stranger lady,_ except that it was Robin Scherbatsky and I recognized her.

I had never met her before, obviously. Sure, I'd seen her on the news; she was pretty famous back then, plus she was really pretty so her picture was literally all over the city. In person, she was even prettier. Tall, shiny dark hair, perfect makeup, slender figure, cheekbones to kill for — and then there was me, wearing a puffy vest and sweats and a messy pony tail, with _all_ on my baby weight, just, everywhere. I'd been living off of donuts and fast food since I'd had you and I hadn't yet gotten to the point that I felt self conscious about it… until right then, standing next to a freaking gorgeous celebrity. That was the moment I felt self conscious about it.

Also, I'd just found out like two weeks ago that she was your father's ex. That was weird too.

But Robin Scherbatsky wasn't looking at me — all of her attention was on you, her eyes wide and alarmed and her face pale. She kind of looked like she might throw up.

I probably should have said something like _what are you talking about and who are you, stop staring at my baby_ , but I knew who she was and she knew who you were so the situation was already too awkward for pretending it was anything else. So instead I said, "uh, yeah, probably. I mean, not to presume! But yeah, that's my kid. Ellie. I'm taking her to see her dad." I remember distinctly not wanting to use your father's name. Even though I knew she knew and she knew you. The pronouns were even more confusing ten years ago, trust me.

Robin Scherbatsky (sorry, it's hard to not use her full name) looked up at me for the first time. I don't really considered your father my ex, since we just went on one, um, date, but I definitely felt that _meeting my ex's other ex_ feeling just then. It was awful. "Oh god," said Robin Scherbatsky. "I'm sorry. I'm being super creepy right now."

 _Yeah, a little bit_ , I thought. "Um, noooo," I said, like if I added enough extra letters to it it'd be _super_ convincing.

"I'm Robin," said Robin Scherbatsky. "You must be, um." I suddenly realized in that moment of complete blankness that even though she knew you by sight and name, she had no idea who I was. Your douchebag father had never bothered to tell anyone my name. I made a mental note to go upstairs and kill him.

"Jennifer," I said. "Jenny."

"Jenny," she repeated. I'm not proud of this, but I totally had a moment of _oh my god a local celebrity called me by my nickname like we're pals_! I kind of smiled because I had no idea what else to do. Robin Scherbatsky looked like she was terrified of me. "I'm sorry," she said. "I was just standing out here and… Barney, I mean, Lily, my best friend Lily, she was posting all these pictures on Facebook of him and Ellie, and she was wearing that coat, and I just, you know, happened to see it…"

Even at the time I thought she was over-explaining a little.

Now, now that I know more about her and your father and that whole soap opera, I think I can understand her a little better. She'd been trying to avoid all reminders of your father after the divorce: not in the way I try to avoid my ex because I hate him, but because it hurt her, seeing him living it up, being happy, meeting idiots like me in bars. She'd been alone and miserable and seeing him happy had only made it worse. She'd tried to tell herself she was happy for him, that it was good, that it was proof she'd made the right decision, cutting him loose instead of forcing him to stay with her, fight for her when she didn't believe he wanted it: she'd told herself she'd made a good choice, a selfless choice, sad pop song lyrics 101: set the one you love free. Only through true selflessness can you be happy.

But it hadn't worked out that way. Truthfully, I'm not sure it ever does. Maybe she'd imagined him pining or begging for her back, taken some comfort in that sharp sadness, that 'look at the falling rain while listening to Adele' emotion. Maybe she'd thought she'd be happy alone, without him complaining and being a douche and saying thoughtless things. Maybe she was, and maybe she vengefully hoped he wouldn't be. I don't know. But I do know it changed. By the time you were born, it had been four years since your father and Robin Scherbatsky had divorced: four years of catching glimpses of him in Facebook updates by their mutual friends, hearing about your father's book deal and conquests and yours truly, and you. Four years of seeing him happy in all the ways she hadn't made him, four years of hearing stories and missing him. They were best friends, Robin Scherbatsky and your father, before they got married, and she'd lost that, too.

Instead of being happy he was happy, she missed him and wanted to be part of that life, those stories. I'm not sure it was love, that she was in love with him for all that time. She might have seen other men, had other relationships. I don't know. But I do know instead of hating him for being happy, resenting him for moving on, she missed him and wished she was part of it. And that says something, I guess. I don't know how much contact they had, those four years: I did find out at some point they'd agreed to be friends, but I also remember what she said when we met. She intimidated the heck out of me, all tall and statuesque and put-together, but then I'd picture her sitting on her computer in some room somewhere, clicking on her friend's pictures of your father and you, and I'd feel really sad about it.

I didn't buy it at all, that she just _happened_ to see it. No, I think she went out of her way, pretending she didn't care, studying your little face for what looked like your father and what looked like someone else, telling herself she was happy for him and maybe imagining what your half brother or sister would have looked like.

When you were a toddler, Robin Scherbatsky was on the cover of _Marie Claire_ , wearing a stripy top and looking way better than anyone has a right to. Feeling like a total creep I bought a copy. The headline was something like _Robin Scherbatsky, amazing celebrity and hot lady, speaks out about life & and love & and infertility_, like it's the sort of casual thing you throw in next to _world travel_ and _inspiring romances_ ; I don't know, maybe it is. I remember she got a bunch of praise on Buzzfeed and the internet for it, what a role model to women, speaking out and not having kids and not being less of a badass for it! I mean, she probably is. Totally is. But I also remember standing there reading the article. There was a line about me and you. _A daughter from another relationship_ , that's what it said, and my whole body went kind of numb because I knew it was you and _I_ was the other relationship. The article made it sound like me and you were the side story, that we only existed in passing, that the real story was Robin Scherbatsky's incredble! bravery! and how she overcame her ex-husband's raging douchery and Child From Other Relationship. I mean, we're all main characters in our own lives, right?

I do know it was an article in a magazine, that some journalist wrote it and spun it into a positive role model shine. But even so, I think that to her, you are something she had to overcome. Someone she looked at on her computer on Facebook, someone whose face she studied and memorized, whose clothes she remembered, whose existence was proof that cutting your father out of her life wasn't something she could just wave her hands and erase, take away.

I mean, look. She's a human. She's always been really sweet to you, and honestly it can't have been easy for her, and maybe it even still isn't. It's not like she's like Dave, legally obligated to love you if he doesn't want me leaving his sorry butt, and I think she actually does like you anyway. Wait, let me rephrase that. She really likes you, for real, as a person, now that you're out of diapers.

And, just, uh, don't tell your father I just said all that, okay?

(Besides, _I_ like you more out of diapers, too.)

Anyway, so, there Robin Scherbatsky and I were, eyeing you in your stroller, her word vomiting out some lame excuse for how she knew exactly who you were on sight.

"Cool!" I said. I get kind of chipper when I have no idea what is happening. "Hey, are you going to the party too?" Internally I was debating if it would be kind of weird or _super_ weird if we showed up together.

"Oh, um," she said. She bit her lip. "I was just up there."

I'll spare you the mystery. A few minutes later, I went upstairs and dropped you off. Your father was thrilled to see you and didn't even notice I was just pawning you off on him to get some rest — that's because we both love you more than anything, sweetie! — and I didn't really stick around but I did wish him a happy birthday and chatted for a minute. Your father was practically bouncing off the walls — a party, just for him! Woo! — and I thought it was maybe a little weird he was so happy, since his ex wife he had been freaking out about not two weeks ago (I'll get back to that part of the story, in a minute, I promise) had just been there and left.

A tiny red-haired women I now know is your Aunt Lily came over and said hi. Actually, she said, "you must be Ellie's mom!" in this really, reaaaallly cheerful voice. Your father hadn't told her my name, either. I really hate your father sometimes.

"Jennifer Marie Renard," I said with kind of grit teeth and cheerful overcompensation. "I'm twenty-two and an Aquarius. I'm a medical transcriptionist!"

Lily looked embarrassed, which was gratifying.

We talked for a little while after that and I mentioned as casually as I could that I'd run into Robin Scherbatsky downstairs. I'll be honest, I was fishing for gossip, I wanted to hear your father had had a big, dramatic confrontation and his current chipperness was overcompensation or something as he tried to hide his pain and broken heart. I love that stuff. _Love_ it.

Instead, Lily just looked shocked. Totally at a loss, her whole expression open. "Robin?" Her voice dropped all low and secretive. "She's here?"

"I talked to her downstairs," I said.

"She said she couldn't come, I tried to convince her Barney would want her here but she insisted…" I don't think Lily was really talking to me as much as she was so overwhelmed by the news her thoughts were coming out as words: she turned away from me after that and rushed off to talk to two men by the punch table.

I was left standing alone and feeling kind of excluded. I also was totally aware that local celebrity Robin Scherbatsky had looked me and my baby in the eye and lied to our faces.

So no, she did _not_ go to the party. But she was invited. But your father and their friends wanted her to.

Robin Scherbatsky is many things. A great reporter, super pretty, fond of big statement necklaces, Canadian.

She's also, possibly, kind of a coward.

Anyway. Fifteen minutes in the past, talking to Miss Scaredycat on the sidewalk outside. "Yeah, I'm just gonna drop Ellie off," I was saying, all cheerful and mid-celebrity encounter and oblivious to Robin Scherbatsky's lying ways. I was actually relieved we wouldn't be riding the elevator up together. "She only fell asleep on the train, hopefully she'll stay out for a while." Robin Scherbatsky was staring at you again. "I seriously underestimated how little sleep I would be getting after she was born," I rambled on. "I think I've reached this like, zen point of tiredness where I have surpassed my exhaustion and reached a new state of consciousness."

"She's beautiful," she said, clearly not listening to me at all. I shrugged modestly and beamed pretty wide. "Is Ellie a nickname?" she played with her hair. "On Facebook, everyone only tags her 'Ellie,' so I wasn't sure." I pictured her again, sitting there, too afraid or nervous to ask, looking at all your photos and trying to fill in the blanks.

"Her name's Elle. Elle Rose Renard."

She looked at you. Truthfully, I don't think she'd looked at anyone else the whole conversation. "That's a pretty name."

"Right?" I said, straightening up my shoulders and feeling better about my messy ponytail and yoga pants. _This just in: local celebrity thinks I have good taste in names!_

She kept looking at you, pensive, wondering what might have been, maybe, or trying to like you, or trying to hate you, or wishing you'd never been born. I don't know. I was trying to imagine it. A huge part of me wanted to ask her if she and your father's talk at the wedding had gone well, or even happened. I was assuming it had, because I hadn't gone upstairs and found out she hadn't gone to the party yet.

Then all at once she smiled, just a little, kind of shy looking. "She has his forehead," she said, tapping hers with one perfectly manicured finger.

I sighed. "I know, it sucks." She actually laughed at that, low and quiet, and I beamed and felt super funny and cool.

It doesn't suck, sweetie. Besides, with your bangs, you barely can even tell.

Robin Scherbatsky was smiling at you, just a little, hesitantly, and I kind of liked it, the look on her face, the mere fact of people appreciating how adorable you were. (and still are!)

"She has his eyes, too," I said. "Not really the shape, but the color." I thought that was kind of nice — everyone in my family, myself included, has brown eyes. You won the genetic lottery, kiddo.

"He really loves her," she said and I don't think I'm projecting when I say she sounded wistful.

I didn't really know how to reply, though. _Yes_ seemed a little insensitive, maybe. This wasn't magazine covergirl, _speaks out about her infertility and life adventures_ Robin Scherbatsky. This was clutching her elbows outside because she was too scared to go to a party she was invited to Robin Scherbatsky, trying to convince herself she's not lonely and doesn't miss your father at all.

"He's really starting to step up," I said, which was maybe a little too personal but this whole conversation was a little too personal, when you get down to it.

She looked up at me. Not judgey, which was great because I would have lost, but maybe a little confused. "Really?" _Fair point_ , I thought. _Who'd assume that ass would ever step up_? But then she said, "I thought — as soon as I heard, I was all, well, I figured… he's always secretly wanted … to be a dad."

"Really?" I asked, because that was totally news to me. "Are you sure?"

This was maybe a step too personal — debating your father's secret desires with his ex-wife. Robin Scherbatsky seemed to think so. Her face closed down, she looked down, she scratched at her eyebrow. "Hey, I bet she's getting cold," she said. "I'll let you guys get up to the party. It was nice meeting you. The two of you."

"Yeah, nice to meet you too!" I said, kind of confused and kind of relieved it was over. "I'm actually a big fan of yours," I said like a cheerful moron, _hey local celebrity, let's be pals!_

Robin Scherbatsky looked surprised and smiled and looked kind of queasy as she said thanks and headed off towards the subway.

It occurred to me maybe two seconds later that she could not say the same thing about me.


	3. comets

_…okay, remember how i said last chapter "this is a three parter?"_

 _yeah, make that four? five? more? i know where this is going and it's not going far, but otherwise i basically give up trying to estimate thing thing. right now i want to say one or two more chapters and an epilogue set in the "present"/2030 (think the kids on the couch as ted wraps it up), but idk. put another way: the story is over when jenny finally gets around to talking about the wedding._

 _…just like ted!_

* * *

Okay, right. Where was I? Not meeting Robin Scherbatsky outside your father's building, but before that. The story of when you were fifteen days old. The story of me saving your dad's butt.

That story.

Your father was sitting on the other end of my sofa-slash-bed; I was feeding you amid my stuffed animals and Urban Outfitters boho throw pillows — he'd grabbed one, gold chevron, and was holding it in his lap. I don't think he really noticed it; he was looking up at my ceiling. I noticed it, but only because I was holding you at my boob, and something about it kinda struck me — me holding a baby, him with a pillow. I thought it seemed vaguely symbolic. But knowing your father like I do now, he probably just needed something to grab, to have in his hands.

He said: "I can't go to my best friend's wedding, because my ex wife is going to be there." Not outright like that, but guiltier, with excuses and extra adjectives — your father is very good at saying a lot of things that mean nothing at all, and less so at telling the _truth._

This was two weeks before I met Robin Sherbatsky, so my gaze whipped around from you to him. "You used to be _married_?"

Seriously. I'd met him in a bar, he was twice my age, a sleazy gross douchebag who acted like a fratbro. At the time, I couldn't have been more surprised if he'd admitted to being a Catholic priest. Actually, I would have been less surprised — everyone knows the church is crazy with scandals.

He gave me a look that, in retrospect, I'm going to call wounded — wounded bordering on offended, but unsurprised. He wasn't surprised. Who would be? Even your father, living in his fantasy universe, knew better than to be surprised. "Yeah," he said.

" _Really_?" He did that thing he sometimes does, where he squints and raises an eyebrow and looks incredulous. I guess I was being kind of rude, but a) this was blowing my mind, b) I didn't really believe it, and c) I didn't like him all that much, so who cares.

"Yeah, really," he sulked, looking over at my silent television.

"Was she a mail-order bride? Model looking for a rich husband?" I narrowed my eyes. "Former stripper with a heart of gold?"

I was sort of kidding, or anyway, my tone was joking but my guesses were deathly serious. I couldn't imagine anyone choosing to marry him, not back then. Not without another good reason. Your father is good looking, I mean, I _did_ … go on a date with him… but he also has, I found out after that date, money. That was pretty much the only reason I could imagine a woman vowing to spend her life with him.

Your father gets loud and huffy when he's annoyed or embarrassed. He didn't get loud or huffy now. He stood up from the couch, his face tight and clouded. I sat there with you on my boob, watching him with wide eyes, dying to know the details — unable to read or understand his mood. I didn't really care about his mood. To me, this was only a story, some juicy bit of gossip — your sleazebag father, who'd once been married, who wanted to skip his best friend's wedding out of fear of this woman. I'd never seen him upset before.

"No," he said, standing there in my one-room apartment. I think he realized he had nowhere to go, nothing he could do to distract himself or me — he took a couple of steps towards my fridge, as my eyebrows raised, and then turned back and looked at me.

I didn't know back then, how fake your father is.

I didn't know how close to home my questions must have been, how he had been asking himself the same questions as me, but for longer, years longer — maybe even when he was married to Robin Scherbatsky, maybe even before. I didn't like him so I could see his faults clearly, without his better qualities to balance them out — his shallow flightiness without the contrast of his humor and hidden intelligence; his mean thoughtlessness without the generosity and loyalty. I didn't know back then that he saw himself the same way, that if we sat down and talked about it we would agree: he's vain and selfish and an arrogant ass, his whole 'awesome' schtick a pretty weak cover, transparent and unpleasant and masking something cold and calculating and slimy.

Why would she marry someone like him? Why would anyone? He wouldn't have wished himself on her or anyone else he cared about; that's why he met me, some anonymous drunken stranger on a rebound, that's why he'd set his sights so low in the years after his divorce — low, but to him, as high as he could reach.

So I was teasing him, picking on him, saying low things because I didn't care about your father, because I was tired and cranky and he was in my apartment when I didn't want him to be, wanting to take you for reasons I didn't want him to, and I didn't know how hard my points were hitting him. How true they were.

I mean, I'm assuming.

I don't know, maybe he just thought it was a little rich that some bottle-blonde (this was when I still dyed my hair) bimbo he'd knocked up was calling _him_ pathetic.

Back then, he said _no_ , and I raised my eyebrows and grinned and didn't read the mood and said, "So what? Shotgun wedding? You don't have _another_ kid, do you?" My grin faded halfway through asking, because, um, _ick_.

"No!" He said. Your father doesn't get angry much — but his voice was tense, and this was about as close to annoyed as he does get. And justifiably, in retrospect. "No. It wasn't like that."

He frowned at this art print I had on my wall: the words _think less, live more_ in some bold hipster font, a print I'd picked out in some young and optimistic _living it up in the big city_ impulse, and in retrospect — meaning, my baby daddy staring at it as I fed our child — more than a little ironic. No offense, sweetie, but thinking less and living more is exactly what had gotten your father and I into this situation.

I was staring up at him, waiting for him to elaborate — I didn't know him well enough to realize he never, ever would — and he clenched his jaw and stared at my poster. "So what was it like?" I wheedled, moving you from my boob to my shoulder to burp you.

I think he must have answered because he wanted you, thought that if he fed me the gossip I'd give you to him, let him use you as his excuse to avoid Robin Scherbatsky. I think so, anyway. And it worked. "She was…" He trailed off, distracted, maybe wondering at his use of tense, putting her in his past for maybe the first time. Or maybe he just didn't know what to say, how to sum up the other great love of his life (besides you, sweetheart) in a sentence to a near-stranger: She was my friend. She was awesome. She was someone who I loved.

"She was Ted's ex," he said, which struck me as _super_ weird but also just the kind of shameless thing I believed of him back then, _oh, he scooped up his best friend's ex? Gross_! Now I know enough to know that was him minimizing, reducing her to the thing she is the least, giving a meaningless fact instead of anything that could hint to his own feelings or any sort of depth. That's the kind of man your father is: the kind who finds it easier to let people think the worst.

So I said something really, really mean. I didn't know it was. I said _huh_ and then I said: "No wonder it didn't work out."

He didn't flinch or cry out. He also didn't argue. He just stared unblinking at my wall, and then slowly, deliberately, after fifteen or twenty seconds, he turned away, turned around and sat slowly on my sofa. Closer, this time. "So I don't want to see her."

"When did you break up?" I asked, thumping your back and jiggling you and staring at your father openly, forgetting I was annoyed at him in my blatant curiosity.

He looked down at his hands. "Four and a half years ago."

 _That_ was weird. "Wait, seriously? It's been that long?" I could understand avoidance: I didn't want to see my ex at all, ever. But Douchebreath and I had been broken up for less than a year at that point. Four years, back then, seemed like a lifetime to me. "Holy crap," I said. Maybe a little more strongly. "What happened?"

I was assuming some kind of reality television, _Real Housewives_ sort of breakup, full of trauma and broken objects, screaming and shrapnel.

"Um," he said. I was staring at him from two feet away; it was probably kind of unnerving, but I didn't think of that. "She travelled a lot for work."

"And?" I asked eagerly.

"And I never saw her."

I remember feeling a little let down, disappointed. "And?" I said, when I meant _that's it_?

His expression went tight. "I'd travel with her sometimes but she hated it when I did and I hated being that pathetic." Having to follow her like an extra piece of luggage, I think: being left in her hotel room and ignored until he was needed or wanted, and those occasions seeming less and less frequent, time moving slowly for him and quickly for her, waiting for her twelve or eighteen hour days to end and growing to resent them, seeing Robin Scherbatsky's devotion to her career as a choice, him and the news on a scale or a schedule and losing every contest.

I didn't really get what he meant back then; I thought he sounded selfish and whiny and pathetic, complaining about his wife's work keeping her from giving him her full attention: how gross, how misogynistic, girl power all the way. I understand it better now. Both sides. Since I started at the hospital… look, it's tough. I hate working twelve hour shifts, leaving you and Dave and your brother, being so tired halfway through the week. I know it's hard on you, I know you wish I had more energy and time, and you're right to feel that way. But I also know I love my job, I love having a real career, and even if it kills me I want it both: you and Dave and Sammy, my patients and the hospital and my ducky scrubs. I understand why your father felt unchosen; I understand why Robin Scherbatsky clung to her career.

"So she divorced you?" I asked, when I meant _your whiny ass_.

He sighed, loudly and exasperatedly and staring back up at my ceiling. "Why am I telling you this?" he asked, his voice all ironic and cool.

That was a pretty good question. I thought about it; you burped. "If you don't go to your best friend's wedding, he'll probably ask why," I said.

"Because you forced me to take my daughter for the weekend, while you went out partying and drinking and being crazy, and I had no choice but to be responsible and…" Your father stopped talking, probably because I was trying to murder him with my eyes and he knew he was never gonna so much as see you ever again if he didn't shut up.

"Freak you!" I said. Or something like that. "You're such a freaking butthole douchebag. Get the freak out." Or something like that. I stood up; he did too.

"Jenny, wait —" he said, realizing how badly he'd screwed up.

"No! What are you telling your friends about me? That I'm some kind of sleazy hobag like you? Get out."

He clenched his jaw; turned towards the door, turned back.

Your father is many things.

One of them is _good at reading people_. "I — She asked me if I was happy and I said no!" he said.

I'm not proud of it, but I stopped yelling. "What?"

"I said I wasn't happy. I _wasn't_ happy. I thought if I said that, James — my brother — James is always going on about honesty and communication and how he got back with his husband because they had an _open dialogue_ or whatever, you know, like Lily and Marshall lay it all out and then fix it, so I thought if I said I wasn't happy she'd lay it all out too and we'd fix it and go _home_!" His voice rising in frustration. He stared up at the ceiling and sped through it, names and references I had no way of understanding, but I was caught up in the gossip and the drama and the story and the way his eyes were glazed, bright as they focused on my ceiling fan. "So I said, _I'm not happy_. I was gonna wait for her to say she wasn't either, and then say something Ted style, some speech off the cuff like _I know you aren't, baby, let's fix this_." As he said it, his voice dropped an octave, got all smooth: I recognized it from the night we met.

You fussed on my shoulder; I didn't notice. Your father closed his eyes for a second. "Instead her face kinda shut down. Like — she blinked and she was this stone cold witch." That wasn't the word he used. His face was hard, clenched and unhappy. "She said if that was the case… then, you know. She wouldn't force me to stay."

I was biting my lip; I stopped. "And you just… slunk out with your tail between your legs? Just like that?"

"No," he said. He moved his jaw. "We had a huge fight first."

Here's what I think. I think Robin Scherbatsky heard him say that and thought the worst, thought it was over and she'd lost him, that if a man who spends his days in the pursuit of happiness is miserable with her, then she must be the problem, then she must have been the one to chase him away. That the best thing to do in response would be to protect herself and minimize her hurt, not give him any opportunities to hurt her more or let him know he had just told her she was a failure. In a magazine article printed in 2023, she'd speak out about her troubled childhood and struggles with relationships and infertility to prove how far she'd risen above it all: in a hotel room in 2016, she would have been alone and terrified. Your father had hoped by telling her the truth she'd pick him over the imaginary foe of her career; choose him in a way he then thought she never had. Instead, he'd told her _I'm unhappy with you_ and in doing so called her a failure. In doing so he had broken her heart.

So she'd built up a wall, Robin Scherbatsky: a wall of cold courtesy and hidden feelings and buried pain. She'd pushed him away before he could tell her how much she'd failed him, before he could open his mouth and tell her something even worse. She'd done the only thing she could think of and cut him loose, set him free to be happy, telling herself then the way she was telling herself in 2020 that she was being selfless and loving and kind, closing her eyes and ears and heart to the way he must have looked after she told him to go, using his arguing, the subsequent fight, as evidence of his misery and her correctness and maybe trying, even then, to rewrite the story in her head, to see him like I used to see him, as bad traits and nothing good. Why had she married him? Why had she loved him? What did it matter to her, if he was happy?

And when he had left, his tail between his legs, she'd probably sat on the bed that had been just twenty minutes before _their_ bed, and he'd probably gone off in search of a drink or distraction, and she'd protected herself and thought she was setting him free, and he'd tried not to wonder when exactly she'd stopped loving him.

I think your father spent a lot of time trying to not think about that.

I think he spent years trying not to go over every event in his head, guessing and second guessing, recasting every memory in his mind until Robin Scherbatsky seemed as cold as she'd been in that moment in every one, until she'd never loved him, until their whole marriage had been a complete farce, a way for her to kill time, until eventually he'd half convinced himself he felt the same, that _falling in love_ had simply been an interesting thing for him to try. Until eventually Tracy McConnell had invited him and her both to a wedding.

But at the time, in the moment, I didn't know anything but what your father told me, and I thought it was a little pathetic. But I was fresh off a breakup and I had _some_ sympathy. And your father did look pretty unhappy.

I sighed. "Okay," I muttered, looking at the carpet.

"And then we — really?" Immediately, you father perked up. It was like he'd never been staring up at the bulb lamp with glassy eyes; like he'd never so much as experienced sadness in his life. I wondered if he'd faked the whole thing. "Awesome!" He reached for you and I pulled back, even as he was continuing, "I'll just take her and we're gonna have an awesome time at home and at the park and at the zoo —"

"— But I'm coming with you," I said. I had to restrain myself from saying it differently, _but only if I may come with you_. Making it an order instead of a request.

He blinked. "I don't want —"

"Yeah," I said, saving him from saying something awful, "I don't totally care about that? I wanna make sure you're not going to put Ellie in a drawer or on the floor or something." I sounded sarcastic but kind of meant it.

"Fine," he said. He rolled his eyes to let me know how dumb he thought I was. It was like none of the conversation we'd been having three seconds ago had even happened.

"Okay," I said. I was watching him, looking for some sign of his earlier sadness, but he was hiding it well. I say hiding it — I only realized this later, after some sleep, but he wasn't looking at me. Not even once, not even for half a second. He looked at the fridge, at my art print, at my stuffed animals. He never made eye contact with me.

But in the moment, I didn't know what exactly to think. I took a deep breath. "Here, hold her for a minute," I said, and handed you to your father. "Watch her head! Darn it!" I said, but he got your head and his expression changed again. He smiled at you in this gooey, sappy way that seemed foreign to his face, to me, but completely natural to me as your mom: who wouldn't look at you like that?

"Hey, Ell," he cooed, holding you up to his face and really too close — if you hadn't been sleepy from eating you'd probably have cried. I stood there for a second, watching him holding you, stroking your dark hair fuzz. I'd never seen him look at anything like that: with warmth, with love. It was also the first time I'd ever noticed the lines around his eyes, the shadows under them.

It was weird, seeing your father as a person instead of just some guy I'd met in a bar, who I'd been unhappy to learn was your father. It was weird, seeing him sad over his ex wife, seeing him holding you, seeing him as more than just some sleazy jerk, more than what he wanted to pretend to be.

It was too weird, in fact, for me to process in my 'haven't slept since giving birth' state: I turned away and packed your diaper bag. "Okay," I said, deciding to think about all of this new information later. "Let's get this over with."

"You should feel honored," your father said, holding you against his shoulder as I ushered him out the door. "Not many women get return visits to the Fortress. Just don't expect another ride on the —" I'm not going to tell you what he said, but it was rude.

"Yeah, maybe try not to shoot yourself in the foot while I'm letting you have my daughter," I said. "If I even let you have her." You hadn't actually been out of my sight since you were born, and I wasn't convinced I was leaving you with your father. But I was curious, about his weird moods and the story he'd told and the idea that he'd even been married once. I wanted to find out more, sue me. I had no real plan: I didn't yet know that the result would be _me sleeping on his bed for fourteen hours_ _and then saving his butt._

"My daughter," he said, back in the present of the story.

I locked the door and rolled my eyes at it. " _Our_ daughter."

You were in your duck onesie, I was in sweat pants and a tank top, your father in an impeccable designer suit. We hailed a cab and headed uptown, him holding you and me holding your diaper bag.

What a sight we made.

What a family.


	4. mars

Your father's doorman gave us a weird look when we arrived at his building. I naturally assumed he was eyeing me, in my sweats and greasy hair and totally not belonging in some Upper East highrise; in retrospect, he was probably wondering what the hell your dad was doing with a baby. Your father was still holding you, and took you right over to the doorman while I trailed behind like an exhausted moron, a sidekick to the Barney Stinson show. "Hey, Clive," he said, holding you up like baby Simba in the Lion King — I screeched and ran towards your father, yelling _her head, her freaking head_ until your father lowered you and was holding you right again. "Check her out!" your father continued, ignoring me: "This is Ellie. My _kid_. My daughter. Ellie Evelyn Stinson."

"That's not her freaking name," I snapped, and he let you take me from him. He pouted. Any of that deep _my marriage failed and I'm scared_ stuff from my apartment had deserted him five minutes into our cab ride uptown.

"It should have been her name," he said.

I huffed and held you close and headed to the elevators; luckily, since I didn't actually remember what floor your father lived on, he followed me. "Elle Rose Renard is a beautiful name." I hadn't met Robin Scherbatsky yet, but had I, I totally could have rubbed it in his face that _your local celebrity ex-wife likes it too_. "Elle Renard was my _grandmother_. She raised my mom alone, even though it was like the forties and she was single and everyone thought she was a huge skank." It was kind of hard carrying you and your stuff all by myself, but your father didn't notice, just followed us into the elevator and pressed the button.

"That's kind of cool," he said. "So you named Ellie after her because you're also a huge —"

I hit him with your diaper bag.

"Because she's my hero and role model, and a super strong badass lady who could kick your ass!"

Your father kept his mouth shut for like a second. "But since you named Ellie after her, doesn't that mean you're kinda implying my _kid_ should be like that too?"

"What, an awesome lady who can beat you up?" I sniffed.

Your father didn't really have an answer to that, mostly because I was holding you with one arm and holding your diaper bag menacingly in the other. As you know, history has totally proven me right where you're concerned, and your father doesn't stand a chance against you. I wish you could have met Grandma Elle, sweetie. She would have loved you.

"You know, Stinsons are awesome people too," your father said when we arrived on his floor.

"Are you sulking?"

"Yes," he admitted, and I laughed a little bit, couldn't help hit, his voice was so pouty and I hadn't expected the honesty. He smiled back at me, and it kind of felt like a moment — not a romantic moment or a sexy moment, but just… a thing. Like for one second, we were both thinking _you're not too bad_. That was new for both of us.

He unlocked his apartment.

It isn't as though it's changed drastically in the last ten years, but it looked different back then. Your father, as you've complained to me on many Sundays, likes things clean and tidy and organized. That's been true as long as I've known him, like he makes up for his personal messiness by keeping all his things in the correct place. It was worse ten years ago: black and steel and dark woods. A kitchen that I don't think had ever been used; a fridge with alcohol and not much else. I guess when Robin Scherbatsky had lived there it looked different — same furniture, but throw pillows and vases and nicknacks. That's how it started to look again when you were little. It was always so quiet, too. Fancy silent appliances, thick glass windows, and your father an incredibly loud man: even with the TVs, I wondered how he could stand it. I think he must be relieved that it's not that way anymore.

But back then I mostly thought _aha, this is exactly what a corporate upper east side douchebag_ would _live in._

He let me in, and I asked him where the nursery was, for my inspection. He took me down the hallway and through the first door. I remembered the second one, end of hall, led to his room; I hadn't been through this door before. "I used to use it for my shoes and accessories," he said, flipping on a light. "There was a cot against there for when my brother was in town or when Lily was my roommmate." Your room wasn't painted yet, just the same gray as the rest of the apartment, but your Aunt Lily had already painted the animal mural along the left baseboard, giraffes bending to look at ducks, armadillos trudging behind friendly tigers and deer and the odd dinosaur. I liked it right away for the design and the randomness of the animals she chose, marching across your room until the leader of the parade, the bear, painted so that he appeared to be peeking out of your window at the city. When you were two or three, your Uncle Ted added the city skyline mural to make them into pedestrians, your Aunt Tracy painting the sky rosy pink. So whenever you start complaining to me and your father that you're too old for baby murals in your bedroom, you're just going to have to suck it up. Your family put a lot of love into those paintings of yours.

Your father had cleared the room of cots and his own clothing, piling in a chair, lamp, and changing table. The rest of your room was dominated by a massive, absolutely ridiculously huge crib. "Were you expecting one baby or, like, six?" I asked. I put you down on your back in the crib. There was a pink knit blanket and tiny pillow laid out for you, but I grabbed both and tossed them onto the chair.

"Hey, my kid is getting the best," your father bragged.

"Don't put a blanket on her until she's like a year old," I said.

"But Tracy made it! It's cute!"

"Or pillows! Have you ever read a baby book? Don't your friends have kids?" You were still pretty much out from your feeding and car ride. I watched you settle and fall asleep in the crib, your little fist curling and opening again, and my attempts to be stern and strict pretty much fell flat. The crib was the size of a boat, and you just looked so cute lying there. He definitely didn't buy it at IKEA, like I did.

"Marshall lent me a book, but I was like, get me the audio version." I tore my gaze from you to him. He was now holding a gigantic stuffed bear with a yellow bow around its neck. "Look! Isn't this li'l guy just destined to be Ellie's favorite toy and childhood protector?"

"Have you been doing anything to prepare besides buying fancy stuff and making your friends paint cute animal murals?"

Your father grabbed a baby monitor from the table. "I have one of these, too! And Lily bought me some formula…" he immediately high tailed it out of the room. You were asleep and seemed to be okay, so I watched your tummy move in and out for a moment before I reluctantly followed him. Aside from going to the bathroom, we hadn't been in different rooms before now. And I did that with the door open.

Your father was talking away in the kitchen. "Lily says this stuff is really good, lots of probiotic shit. Are you breast feeding? That's kind of —" Neat, he said. _Neat_. Wonderful and mothering and nothing else. "— and look, Ted gave me this whole list of stuff, I have a bottle warmer machine thingy, and isn't this just the cutest li'l dish set?"

"She's not gonna be eating solid food for months!" It was a little plastic tropical jungle dish set, with a little tiny fork and cup and, _ugh_ , my heart melted just looking at it.

He showed me the stroller he had tucked in his hall closet, a bag of baby clothes he hadn't put away yet, more toys, and eventually led me to his own bedroom just to show me the other half of the baby monitor, prominently set up on his dresser. "So you see," he said smugly, as I sat down slowly on his bed, a little overwhelmed, "I'm _mega_ prepared to take care of Ellie for the next six to eight hours, and maybe weekends sometime if I'm not too busy."

To be honest, he _did_ seem to have gone out and bought everything — more than I even owned at the time. It was kind of a weird realization, that he had fancy bottle warmers and a designer stroller and a beautiful east-facing nursery, and I had an IKEA crib in my sofa. He'd bought you toys upon toys and cute designer outfits you'd grow out of in a week and a half, and I'd relied on donations and craigslist.

It felt kind of… shitty.

Like somehow because I didn't have the money or space for this stuff, I was the loser, the worse parent. I just sat on your father's bed and kept holding your baby Burberry jacket — the one your father had just shown off to me a moment before — and stared at the high ceilings and hardwood floors and remembered the last time I'd been in this room and how my apartment smelled like laundry and Febreeze and diapers…

…And I burst into tears.

Your father skittered backwards, pressing himself up against the wall in a panic. "Dude, I know I'm awesome, but what are you _doing_?" he asked in a high voice that would have been funny, except I was currently sobbing into your brand new jacket, just weeping into my hands and the super soft wool, my nose running. I was so _tired_ , sweetie. I was so tired and so overwhelmed and your father had all the money I didn't have and none of the investment I did. Back then, before he knew you, you were a game or a fun new posesssion, new and novel, the perfect way to get out of a wedding he was afraid of. And maybe you were more than that — maybe you were his chance, too, his _last_ chance, 11th hour hail mary, to prove he could do something right, not screw up one last time. That if he bought you enough things he could make you happy, in a way he hadn't made anyone before.

Or maybe your father just thought you were an exciting new pet. I mean, you really didn't _do_ much back then.

But I was tired and overwhelmed and I cried and cried, not saying anything, not _thinking_ , really, just overtaken with pure emotional release: giving birth alone, my recent breakup, my fears about taking care of you, providing for you, your crib in a closet, your unreliable father who I still mostly thought of as a wall street douche, a man who'd only shown up at my door and wanted paternal rights so he could skip a wedding, who'd played on my love for drama and gossip to get my sympathy — and now who was being dramatic, huh?

"Jenny?" your father asked, really hesitantly, after this had been going on for a minute. (See what I did there? Answered my hypothetical question with some convenient dialogue? Your mother should have been a writer.) "Are you… okay?"

Somehow, the complete stupidity of that question helped. He sounded so hesitant. "What do you think," I sniffled, half laughing, "you freaking moron?"

"Has anyone ever told you you swear a lot?" your father asked. I heard him clear his throat, and footsteps, and then the bed dipped as he sat down beside me. Not too close, but there. "Um," he added. "Why are you crying?"

"I don't know," I sniffled, still crying, but a few steps down from my end-of-the-world sobbing. I did kind of know — the jealousy, the fear, the contrast between him and me — but I didn't want to go into it, and he didn't think to press me.

"Shh," he said. "There, there." It was super condescending, and he didn't really sound like he meant it. He patted my shoulder, and then kept patting it, mechanically, like he'd read in a book this was how you comfort someone.

I half-laughed again, wiping my eyes with the hem of my jacket. "You just… you really have it all together here," I said.

"Uh-huh, everyone gave me a list and made me buy it all," he said in a matter-of-fact voice.

"But why?" I asked. I wished he'd offer me some water or something, but he didn't. "You don't want Ellie. You were only in the hospital to prove she wasn't yours."

His hand rested on my shoulder, no longer patting it. "…That's true," he said in a low voice, more seriously than I'd heard him before — not the slightly angry upset from my apartment, but with what sounded like actual sincerity and honesty. I kind of ruined the moment of quiet contemplation by sniffling really loudly, one of those huge, wet ones. "Gross," he said.

"So why… all this?" I asked, wiping my nose with the back of my hand.

His thumb stroked my shoulder. It was a strange, intimate gesture. Not something I'd ever had from him before. We'd been on our … date …, and even kissed, but this was different. Thoughtless, his thumb over my shoulder and hand trailing gently down my bicep. It felt kind of romantic, and this was a _weird and creepy time_ for that, so I looked up at him in alarm. He wasn't paying me the slightest bit of attention, staring vaguely ahead of us. "It was different when I saw her," he said.

"Well, obviously," I said. I'd loved you before you were born, but the moment I saw you, it was like the doors to a newer, shinier layer of love burst wide open. I totally bought your father had been struck by the same. You're pretty awesome, why wouldn't he have been?

"I kind of thought I couldn't do that anymore," he said.

"Have kids?" I frowned and wiped my eyes again. Your father is a lot older than me, but not _that_ old. "What, did you have a vasectomy?"

"What? No. Eww. No way I'm lettin' a doctor get anywhere near my junk unless it's a hot —"

You know what, you don't need to hear the rest of that: your father said no. And in the process of protesting, he stopped rubbing my shoulder, which was kind of a relief.

"Then what?"

"Ah… umm…" He looked up at the ceiling, down at his hands, picked at something on his suit… the entire time, I stared at him with everything I had. When it was starting to get really awkward, he broke. "Love."

"What?"

He huffed. "Whatever, nothing."

"No, what do you mean?"

He stood up. "Love, okay? I didn't — think I could feel that way. At all. Anymore. About anything. So that was neat. Whatever. No big deal." He swallowed. "So yeah, I love Ell a lot and I have a lot of cool stuff for her, can I have her? Please? _Please_?"

Love.

Something about it struck me as horribly sad.

"Don't be ridiculous," I said, instead of being sympathetic to his moment of pure honesty.

"What? I _did_ everything you asked me too —" he pouted.

"How can you not feel love?" As I said it, I remember he had gotten divorced four years ago and maybe still wasn't over it and wanted you to avoid seeing his ex. "No you don't," I added, answering my own question.

"I do love Ell," he insisted.

"You feel love," I said. Suddenly, it all clicked in my head, the pieces of the story he'd been telling. How he'd gotten divorced and hadn't known why, how he'd wanted to work it out with his wife but she'd just told him to go, how four years later he obsessed at it and picked at it and was afraid, terrified, scared enough of facing her and seeing her: seeing her apathy, her dislike of him, or maybe worse: seeing her happy to see him, sincere and platonic with their history and story meaning nothing to her, nothing at all. That something that had mattered so much to him had been nothing to her, not worth keeping or fighting to save or remembering, that he was expected to go to his best friend's wedding and stand opposite her and not think of his own wedding and how happy he'd once been. How he'd convinced himself he didn't believe in love, couldn't feel love, didn't want love, and how meeting you had terrified him and proved that all to be untrue, opened him up again and created a chink that Robin Scherbatsky with a single polite, meaningless smile could smash into a bloody hole. He loved you, so he was afraid of any other love. He couldn't have you and his walls at the same time.

I didn't say any of that, or think it all fancy like that. More like _oh, gotcha, he can feel love and his ex is going to be at the wedding and it's just like ten different romcoms!_

"I just _said_ I love Ell —" he started to say impatiently, since he also wasn't exactly in the loop of my fancy mental analysis.

"What about your ex-wife?" I was caught up in the emotion of the moment; a couple of stray tears leaked, and I could feel them tracking down my cheeks as I stared up at him, his slack jawed expression, black eyes, the moment he had no idea what to say, or think, or do.

Your father recovered fast. "I haven't talked to her in years," he said.

"You were still in love with her when you broke up, right?" I said.

He clenched his jaw and shrugged.

"That's why you're being such a chickenshit now," I said, sniffling and wiping my eyes again. "You're afraid if you see her at a _wedding_ you're gonna fall for her again."

"No," he said abruptly, with a humorless little laugh, " _No,_ I'm not."

"Because you never stopped?"

"Of course I stopped," he said impatiently, making eye contact with the lamp next to his bed. "I'm not in love with her. I don't love anyone. She doesn't feel anything about me either. I just don't wanna go and deal with her. Because of how much I _don't_ love her." He mustered up some good bravado as he said it, but I was also thinking of the thoughtless way he'd been rubbing my shoulder, totally inappropriate and weird with _me_ , but the sort of thing I'd done with boyfriends, the sort of thing I could imagine him, almost, doing with his mysterious ex-wife: her crying and him making a bad joke, sitting next to her on the bed, rubbing her shoulder, trying to make her smile.

"You love Ellie."

"I love Ellie," he repeated, narrowing his eyes.

"So you love your ex-wife."

"That's not how it works," he complaining. Which was true, and fair enough, really, except…

"You're afraid of finding out," I said.

"Why do you care?" he snapped, suddenly.

I didn't have an answer to that. I really didn't. I looked up at him stupidly, your coat in my lap, my wet fingers clenching the edges of his mattress, his expensive sheets soft to the touch. Why did I care? I didn't. I mean, I wanted to know. I felt invested in this drama, which didn't ultimately effect me and could therefore simply be fun, something to think about besides you. (Not that you're not the best, sweetie!) But there was more to it than just the excitement of melodrama, somehow. More than just a fun story.

"It makes you more of an actual human," I said finally, not sure I was articulating it correctly. To know he had feelings beyond _hitting on girls like me_ and _the novelty of you_ and _douchebaggery_ , to know he had things he was sad about and even annoyed about, that he didn't just exist in a smug, intrusive universe, complaining my entire pregnancy only to upend the show with your birth. I wanted him to be a human. I didn't like him, but I was interested by him.

I _wanted_ to like him, I was beginning to realize, back then, sitting and half-crying on his bed. I wanted him to be part of your life like my father wasn't in mind, and I didn't want to do it with grit teeth.

He seemed taken aback. "What, me being pathetic makes me more _human_?"

"That's kind of what love is," I said, blinking out a couple stray tears.

He looked at me, and then towards the door, probably thinking _but I still don't want to go_.

"Go," I said, before he could come up with an excuse. "Go to the wedding. If you're not in love with her, it won't even be a big deal," I couldn't resist saying, probably kind of obnoxiously, "and if something does happen… I'll be here. You can even use me as an excuse."

He frowned. "What, hey, Robin, good to see ya, but I'm kinda on a deadline — there's already a girl at my place?"

I didn't quite make the connection just then, but that meant he was _totally_ already past just saying _hi_ and onto _mentally planning a big romantic reunion scene_. Your dad talks tough; don't believe him. "Oh, you know Ellie's mom? She's out drinking and partying and being _crazy_ and I have to pick up Ell from her evil trampy clutches," I said, eyes narrowed at him as I did, because I was still super mad he'd implied that was the backstory he'd thought up for me. "But only if it goes bad and you need an escape. And since you're totally secretly pining for Robin —" I didn't know it was Robin Scherbatsky, local celebrity, yet — "you'll be too busy asking her for one more chance or whatever to need it."

He smiled a little sheepishly, but the look changed. He almost looked kind of… happy with me? It was a first, I wasn't sure.

"Now _go_ ," I said, flopping back onto his fancy bed with the oh-so-soft bedding. I'd been here before — I mean, I'd seen it on our date, on a tour of the apartment — but I hadn't appreciated it last time. Because it was a quick tour. No other reason.

"Hey. _Hey_. You can't sleep —"

"Don't you dare," I interrupted. "If I have to stay here and watch my baby while you're winning your breakup or your ex back, I'm doing it on Egyptian cotton."

"You're getting snot all over my duvet," he whined.

"Shove it," I muttered, thinking: _I'll rest here for a few minutes, until I'm sure he's gone, and then I'll take you and go home. I'll set my phone's alarm in a second_.

My eyes were closed (I was two and a half minutes away from sleeping for fourteen hours), but I didn't hear him walking away. " _Barney_ ," I said as dangerously as I could while half asleep, "go get the freaking girl."

He laughed softly. "You know, for a trampy alcoholic party girl," he said, as I heard him start to walk out the door, "you're alright."


End file.
